11 Feb If you’re born in the wrong place…
Do you see the baby girl in the photograph? Sister Laura noticed her among the patients in the public hospital, because the wound on her cheek was severely infected. She was delivered using forceps inappropriately, tearing her cheek and injuring her shoulder.
Mahlet – for this is her name – was in a very critical condition: the infection was putting her life at risk. She had not even been given antibiotics in the hospital. Vaccines were not available, either.
The missionaries welcomed the baby and her mother to their little temporary clinic. Sister Pauline of Cottolengo and her student nurses dressed the baby’s wound, and Alfonso, the doctor who heads the new hospital, monitored its healing.
The baby’s young mother says Mahlet is the most precious thing in the world for her, especially since her husband’s premature death.
But the little girl’s arm is still useless. She needs an operation by a qualified neurosurgeon. And there isn’t one in Adwa.
Sister Laura and her team are working hard for this little girl, and many, many more children who, like her, are being born in the wrong place and may not survive their first few years of life. Ethiopian mothers and children urgently need adequate healthcare.
Help little children like Mahlet to be born and grow up in a safe, welcoming place!